Too early to gauge effectiveness of plain packs admit Aussie officials

According to an Australian newspaper last week:

Aus smokers lose their taste for plain packaged cigarettes

Someone should tell our own Chief Medical Officer!

Comments

[Rod]

I might have noticed an increase in the amount of pack litter on the street since the "introduction" (enforcing) of "plain" packs.

Maybe you could excuse yourself from a charge of littering by suggesting that you allow the message to persist after the pack is empty. Maybe you could collect empty packs from bins and litter them near schoolgrounds.

[joyce]

Oh, how convenient - so when plain packs fail to reduce the take-up of smoking by The Children, they are still to be considered essential because they encourage people to quit.

If "sensory association" is so vital, how come people who use cigarette cases don't feel the same urge?

[John Mallon]

In Ireland now, many people are reporting that the beef tastes different, with a sort of equine flavour, some say ................

[Misty]

Of course, it won’t have occurred to the intellectually-challenged champions of plain packs that it could just be that the smugglers – not people who have ever been slow off the mark – in the light of all the advance warning they’ve had of an opportunity not to be missed, might just have got in a bit early with their own, now easily produced, plain packs, and managed, with the assistance of either a compliant – or just not-very-alert – shop assistant to get their illegal (and, probably, poor quality – hence the poor taste) cigarettes on sale in shops, unnoticed by the antis who are too busy preening themselves to see that contraband cigarettes are now being sold openly, right under their sensitive little noses!

[Pat Nurse]

when consumer rights to product description, price comparison and brand recognition are stolen how would we know whether the antis are contaminating taste or not? I really wouldn't put it past them because they are foul and nasty and really don't give a damn about smokers' health - only how much money they can make on the back of the misery and prejudice they create against them.

[Peter James]

These nutmeg anti smokers are pyschogicaly challenged. And God they get paid for it.

[AntonyH]

People will of course be suspicious of what it is in the packs, its only natural. Just as one would if, for instance, all tins of beans all had the same label and you always used to prefer Heinz.